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Salad Dressing

A dressing made from eggs, sweet oil, mustard, vinegar, salt, and chopped hard-boiled eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Salad Dressing

Why it works: Mustard and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Beat the eggs with sweet oil, mustard, and vinegar.

  2. Mix just before using.

Assemble

  1. Salt the chopped eggs.

  2. Add the chopped hard-boiled eggs and pour the dressing over everything.

  3. If needed, add more vinegar for dressing.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Egg + mustardtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,210 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Egg + vinegartop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and vinegar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,922 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Beaten raw eggs emulsify with the oil and vinegar, thickening the dressing into a creamy body.
Sweet oil
Provides fat that carries flavor and gives the dressing a smooth, rich texture.
White vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the oil and eggs.
Mustard
Helps stabilize the emulsion and adds a sharp, pungent flavor.
Hard-boiled eggs
Chopped eggs add bulk and a firm, mild texture to the salad.

The step that matters

Beat the eggs with oil, mustard, and vinegar. Raw egg proteins and mustard help hold oil and vinegar together as an emulsion. If the ingredients are added too fast or not beaten enough, the dressing can separate and look greasy. Mixing just before using keeps the emulsion from breaking.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, vinegar):

  1. Cucumberfits about as well
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Shallotfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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